Chapter Text
-Early January-
{Prologue}
Hatsune Miku against the backdrop of the perfect night sky, declaring to a crowd gathered below, "We cannot afford to give up, now more than ever! If you are the next Seven Star, then claim your destiny, and bring back the sun!"
In the dead of night a crowd of uma gather, approaching one-by-one an uma with long pastel blue hair and lighting their candle with the flame of hers, as the girl stares wide-eyed and scared, thinking, Have I... Started a cult?
"The cold doesn't bother me," a purple-haired uma muses, a fake smile on her lips. "But watching so many people give up hope--" She faces the girl she's sitting with, "makes me wonder if any of this is worth it."
An uma with short-cropped silver hair whirls on another, "You may be my sister, but that stopped meaning a thing when the sun went out! I'm going to train. Don't get in my way."
An uma with a brown side-ponytail gasps and looks away from her astrolabe, "No... The moon, it--! But that means..."
{Introducing Metamo Reborn}
A strikingly beautiful uma, tall with long pastel blue hair and sleek long ears, walks the sunny courtyards and fields of Miyamasuzaka Umamusume Academy's extensive campus, and pulls out her phone. "Trainer? Oh good you picked up! Yes I know you're busy but I'm lost-- Huh? Oh. This... is a recording." She sighs and puts her phone away and continues wandering.
Saito Ayaka ignores her buzzing phone, staring dreamily at a small TV screen in her office as one of MiyUma's resident trainers, as the uma on the screen, strikingly beautiful with pastel blue hair declares, a fire in her eyes, "I am Metamo Reborn and, if I might add one thing to what you said... I might have won a local grand prix in junior high, but that was not my peak. I'll continue to shine, brighter and brighter, until I've dazzled all of Japan."
Tied Hope, an uma with short blue hair in an effortless bob, stops her jog beside Metamo Reborn. "Tamo? Is everything alright? You look a little down."
Metamo Reborn smiles brightly, and anyone else would be stunned, but Tied Hope is no stranger to the limited stardom Junior League runners can achieve before starting their Careers proper in high school. "I'm not feeling down anymore! It's so lovely to see you, Hope! I was just thinking how very big MiyUma's campus is and how very many people there are that I don't know."
Tied Hope smiles warmly and Metamo Reborn relaxes. "It is nice, to see a familiar face. I was on my afternoon jog, but, where would you like to go? I'll take you there."
"~I actually forgot where it was I was going! But I'm sure I'll remember it, if I accompany you on your jog! Lead the way!"
-Late January-
{Trainee Event} My Side of the Room
Metamo Reborn sits on her half of her dorm room, already unpacked and reading a book at her desk by the window. "...her friend is helping her by not helping her... She doesn't really want to be a normal girl..." Metamo Reborn turns the page.
The door handle moves and the door is thrown open. An uma with long wavy brown hair and piercing lilac eyes enters carrying a huge move-in box. She tries to put it down on Metamo Reborn's side of the room but huffs and hauls it over to her own side. She crosses her arms catching her breath, and looks down at Metamo Reborn, muttering, "Who said you get the better half of the room..."
Metamo Reborn closes her book and gives the girl a smile. "You must be my roommate! My name is Metamo Reborn. Might I have yours?"
The uma regards her coldly. "I already know your name. Did you not get the email?" Metamo Reborn blinks. "...My name, is Clever Twist. Charmed." Clever Twist flicks her tail irritatedly.
"Um..." Metamo Reborn starts, "It is true that when I moved in I just chose which side of the room I liked best. Would... you like to switch?"
Clever Twist looks dumbfounded. "...Don't be stupid. You got here first. And you're already unpacked. Don't offer things you aren't willing to give." Clever Twist leaves out the door to bring up another of her move-in boxes.
She returns a few minutes later and stacks the heavy box on top of her first box, waiting right where she gravitates to normally when walking into the room. Her ears flick, and she jumps back. Metamo Reborn smiles at her, set up on the opposite side of the room, her clothes, bedspread, and other belongings already neatly arranged.
Clever Twist says, "Thanks... Metamo Reborn, right? It's a pleasure to meet you."
{Scenario Event} The Seven Star
Metamo Reborn is in class gazing out the window at two cute songbirds chasing each other in the crisp January air. Her notebook is open to a fresh page with History Notes Jan 5, 92 written on it, and nothing else.
The teacher's voice snaps her out of her daydreams. "Metamo Reborn? Would you care to answer for us?"
Metamo Reborn gasps and looks around the room. All of her classmates are looking at her. There isn't any obvious question written on the board. A motion draws Metamo Reborn's gaze to the desk beside her, an uma with her long brown hair pulled into a side-ponytail, who's holding up her own notes. Scribbled in big characters are the words, 'What defines a Seven Star?'
Metamo Reborn breathes a sigh of relief and answers, "Don't we define a Seven Star by the G1 races the girl Symboli Rudolf won during her racing career?"
The teacher frowns and shakes his head. "Not quite. That is actually a misconception off of her epithet The Seven-Crowned. Symboli Rudolf was a Seven Star, but she was not the first. Can anyone answer?"
That same girl beside Metamo Reborn raises her hand. The teacher calls on her, "Yes, Awaiting Regulus?"
Awaiting Regulus answers, "To be a Seven Star relates to the myth of the zodiac constellation Equuleus, positioned between her sisters Libra and Sagittarius. G1 Races taking place under her constellation, in November and December, as well as in April and May under Triangulum, her starting gate where she began her run which traced the Milky Way, are sacred to her. An uma who wins seven G1 races under her signs is a Seven Star. Traditionally, this also involves winning the Arima Kinen twice, a race referrencing Equuleus in its name. which is what Symboli Rudolf did 107 years ago in 1985."
"Yes... The last I checked, I was the one teaching this class. Symboli Rudolf became a Seven Star in December, and it's January now. That was only 106 years ago." The teacher gets scattered snickers from the class, as Awaiting Regulus sits down, trembling with fear. A motion to her side draws her attention, her eyes tearing up. Metamo Reborn is holding up her blank page of notes, the only thing written, in big characters, 'Thank you!'
-Early February-
{Scenario Event} A Taste of Home
Metamo Reborn and her trainer Saito Ayaka are strolling through downtown Shibuya together, brightly lit in neon nightlife. Metamo Reborn is dressed in a modest green button-down overalls-style dress worn on top of a see-through long-sleeved lace shirt in rose patterning. Saito is wearing a green cardigan with a splash of color in a red and white floral decal, open over a plain striped shirt and skinny jeans. Metamo Reborn thinks they look like they're on a date, but doesn't want to embarrass her trainer.
Metamo Reborn says cheerily, "Thank you so much for inviting me out, Trainer!" When Saito turns to look, Metamo Reborn gives her a bright smile, enjoying the wide-eyed blush that takes over her trainer.
Still dazed, Saito manages, "The pleasure is mine. ...Actually, a part of me still can't believe this is happening. To think, the local racer who inspired me to become a trainer would also find her way to MiyUma here in Tokyo."
"I'm grateful too," Metamo Reborn says, "to have found someone so very invested in helping me shine! You mentioned wanting to go out somewhere nice tonight?"
Saito nods. "Tonight's actually an important date for me. It's the anniversary of my dream; when I decided to become a trainer instead of working the family inn back in Morioka. Because of that... it's also the first day that I saw you in concert. This was your first Winning Concert during the Iwate Junior Grand Prix."
"Oh!" Metamo Reborn says surprised. "In that case, it's a special date for me as well!"
Saito takes them to a restaurant specializing in Morioka-style cuisine, local to both of them. Saito gets them a table for two, and they look through the menus.
Saito smiles, "They have an uma special on wanko soba! I remember when the Takeuchi's down the road tried that. They only had three chefs between the mother and kids and it wasn't a full month before they had to stop."
Metamo Reborn laughs politely. Wanko soba is a local specialty, of noodles served with mushrooms, radish, sashimi and salmon roe, and it is served in small bowls which get promptly refilled. Metamo Reborn does enjoy it; she has a few lovely memories of her family taking her and her sister Resonating Faith out when they had something to celebrate. But...the thought of Saito watching her put away bowl after bowl... Metamo Reborn fakes a smile, "It's quite impressive! Especially since we aren't too far away from the school. ~Tokyo really is something else!"
Saito looks concerned for a moment and changes the subject, "I'm getting the reimen, myself. The kimchi here is really good, and I've never had it with plum before."
"I might try that sometime! I don't do well with spicy foods, but it sounds like it has your recommendation! I was thinking of two orders of the Morioka jajamen?" It's a noodle dish served with a richly flavorful miso broth with pork, garlic, onion, mushroom and sesame, with various sauces that can be added to taste.
Saito looks worried. "This is my treat, Metamo. I get paid quite well at the academy and want you to be able to enjoy yourself. Please, order as many things as you'd like."
Metamo Reborn shakes her head. "This is what I'd like," she reassures her trainer. "A little taste of home with somebody I'm able to reminisce with."
Saito looks pleading. "Well yes but... Is it enough food?" Metamo Reborn gives a slight nod. "Could I order you a third helping? If you don't finish it you can take it back to the dorms."
Metamo Reborn refuses, "It wouldn't taste the same if it weren't fresh, don't you think?"
Saito lets the matter drop, and they order their food and manage to have a lovely dinner. Umamusume need to eat much more than humans; about five times more, but that figure can climb to almost ten if she's active as a runner. Metamo Reborn wonders if she should have taken Saito up on her offer to take a portion home but... she isn't very hungry.
-Late February-
{Card Event: Awaiting Regulus} After Practice Apple Pie
Awaiting Regulus stretches in the afternoon sun, sweat gleaming. "Thank you so much Metamo Reborn, for agreeing to practice-run with me." She drinks from her water bottle. "You're so poised and focused when you run... I feel like I'm learning so much just by watching you."
Metamo Reborn laughs brightly. "That's so kind of you to say! I'm glad that you're able to learn by watching me, because I really wouldn't know the first thing about describing what it is I do!" The two sit on the grass nearby. "Also! Please feel to call me Tamo! I may be a little older, but we're in the same Generation, and you're one of Fayfay's treasured friends!"
Awaiting Regulus looks surprised. "Oh um--! Of course, Metamo! You may call me Regulus, as well. Or... Reggie, if you really want to. Sorry... I know we're technically in the same Generation, but co-ed schooling put us in different grades. I think you'll always be Faith's older sister to me." A melancholy strikes Awaiting Regulus, as her tireness seems to catch up to her. "...although... I don't have very much to do with Faith anymore... I feel like it's been years, since we really talked."
Back home in Morioka, Metamo Reborn's little sister Resonating Faith used to be really close with the three other umas in her grade. While the cutoff for racing generation is the new year, putting Metamo Reborn and Resonating Faith barely in the same year, the school system in Morioka put all the children in school together, and the cutoff for school year was in the summer. Metamo Reborn has a January birthday and her sister a December one.
Metamo Reborn sulks with her. "I'm sorry to hear that. I had thought that was the case, but the time after Stella Rain needed to stay long-term at the hospital here in Tokyo, that was right when my life had gotten so busy from running in the Junior League. I didn't even know... I'm a terrible sister." Metamo Reborn sips from her thermos, but while usually the aroma is enough to soothe her, right now it can't find her at all.
Awaiting Regulus smiles bittersweetly. "You aren't alone, if it's any consolation. I'm not like Faith or Meteor. Even Stella. Running is just a hobby to me. I shouldn't even be at a school like MiyUma but... I realized... home isn't home without those three." Metamo Reborn smiles at her but Awaiting Regulus averts her eyes in shame. "I'm a coward. I left them for human friends after Stella moved away, and stopped talking. I still can't face them, even after leaving so far from home..." Awaiting Regulus goes through her purse and pulls out an apple pie and a pie knife, and eats dejectedly.
Metamo Reborn makes herself comfortable on the grass and drinks more of her miso soup she packed in her thermos. "If it's okay, Reggie, I don't want you to feel distant from me." Awaiting Regulus blinks mid-bite, staring at her. Metamo Reborn continues, "We both have people who we love with all our heart who we can't bear to face. I don't know how to talk to Fayfay anymore, and it's the same way for you. It hurts."
Awaiting Regulus lets out a sigh of relief. "...You get it," she breathes. She cuts another slice of apple pie but she isn't eating out of stress anymore. "Thank you Tamo. I would like that a lot."
Metamo Reborn finishes the last of her soup and places her thermos back in her bag. She sits back and takes in the sunset and the warm breeze which feel nice on her skin after exercising. "I wish I could stay out here with you... The cafeteria is about to close and that run made me hungry." Metamo Reborn gives Awaiting Regulus a smile. "Is it alright if we do this again? I had a wonderful time."
"I did too!" Awaiting Regulus says, smiling. She sets aside her empty pie tray and reaches back into her bag. "If you like apple pie..." She takes out another pie to share with-- oh. She takes out a third pie and offers it to Metamo Reborn, who happily accepts.
Awaiting Regulus says, "I really can't get enough of these. I'm so glad I can eat them freely again." Metamo Reborn cuts herself a slice after being handed the pie knife. "I mean... Nothing stopped me. but... When humans say 'apple pie', they usually mean the apple pastries you get from corner stores. The friends I made after Stella moved away, they... thought it was...funny."
Metamo Reborn gives a concerned look over at her friend. "I'm sorry... I'd usually just wait until I could go home to eat when I was with my human friends."
Awaiting Regulus meets Metamo Reborn's gaze, grateful to be seen. "It's so strange, being in a school of just uma." Awaiting Regulus cuts her third slice from the pie. "But... It's nice, too."
-Early March-
{Scenario Event} These Three Years
The first-year student body mills about out on the main field. Metamo Reborn had once been able to count the number of uma she knew outside her family on her hands, but here... It's more than she can count at all. A sea of ears of all shapes and colors and anxiously flicking tails.
The director of the Academy steps up to the podium, a tall human woman dressed in a teal suit the same color as her long hair worn in twin ponytails. "Greetings and good morning, students of the 2092 Generation here at our proud school of Miyamasuzaka Umamusume Academy." The crowd quiets down, listening attentively to Director Miku.
Miku continues, "Today marks the halfway point to when you may begin running your Make Debut races and thus kick off your Careers as racers. Look around you. You here are the best of the best, and you will define the 2092 Generation for all of Japan, as each of your stories take shape and intertwine with these girls you see around you."
"Each of you should be paired with one of our Academy's personal trainers now, and your next three months will be very busy as your preparations commence in-force for your Make Debuts. But please, remember as well to enjoy yourselves! These may be your formative three years as racers, but they are also your high school years!"
"Here at MiyUma you enjoy a degree of freedom to live your life the way that you choose. For many of you, it may be a strange sensation indeed to be surrounded by so many other umamusume. In your respective communities you were the minority in a human world, and no doubt had to bend and compromise to fit within it."
"MiyUma was founded to allow umamusume to chase their dreams freely and become the umas they wish to. It is to create a once in a lifetime experience, one that can't exist anywhere else. This, is the true reason so many of the racing legends started out right here, like you, as first-years of Miyamasuzaka Umamusume Academy. Be proud. But more importantly, be you! And remember that you alone have the final say on who that is. Thank you for your time today, and thank you for being a part of our story together."
There's an energy and life to the crowd as it disperses and Metamo Reborn feels it as well. This place, these three years, really do belong to a different world. One for umamusume. before they each inevitably return to the human world which exists outside the Academy.
Metamo Reborn had been the only uma in her schoolyear but she also never had difficulty getting along with her human friends and classmates. She was their uma friend, and, although at times that meant answering difficult questions or if they can touch her ears or tail, it wasn't something she held against them. She was their window into a world which, secretly, didn't extend much further than the four walls of her home. While Metamo Reborn couldn't speak for much more than herself, people looked to her to speak for all umas. It was a role she was forced into, and so she rose to the position, feeling like something of an ambassador for everybody like her, and so she carried herself like someone always being observed, whose mistakes were not her own and whose shortcomings reflect on many more people than herself.
And she stopped making mistakes... She always presented as her best self; kind, polite, and approachable. In many ways, she had stopped being a person in her own right. But here, at MiyUma, she can just be Metamo Reborn. if she wants to... That world, she is still a part of it and she will be again, after these three years are over.
MiyUma really is an amazing place... because a community of and for umamusume really can't exist. Every uma has -- or had once -- a human father, and were she ever to want to start a family someday, it would mean submitting herself to the human world. Metamo Reborn can't imagine that ever being something that she wants. but, is it really right to think of life as being of things she wants?
Maybe here, for these three years, it can be.